This was due to a shifting of the perspective. It is observable from the moment when men began to write the history of Jesus upon the assumption that on earth he was already the Messiah. From that time on men lost consciousness of the fact that for the earthly existence of Jesus his very messiahship was something future, and that by the very expression Son of Man he designated himself as the future Messiah. Since, then, it was an historic fact that he spoke of himself as the Son of Man, the writers appropriated this emphatic term and without suspecting that it was appropriate only in certain sayings and in definite situations, they employed it indifferently in any passage where Jesus spoke of himself,—and thereby [pg 197] created these philological and historical impossibilities. This erroneous use was due therefore to a literary development of markedly secondary character. In this respect it was like the unhistorical use of the expression “Son of David” by Matthew. It agrees thereto that the “Son of Man” passages here in question belong likewise to a secondary stratum of St. Matthew’s Gospel. What chiefly reveals their secondary character is: the transformation of the simple question asked at Cæsarea Philippi (Mt 16:13); the application of the parable of the sower (Mt 13:37, 41); and the false interpretation of the saying about Jonah (Mt 12:40). No less secondary is the formulation of the speech about the sin against the Holy Ghost, where a contrast is drawn between blasphemy against the Holy Ghost and against the Son of Man (Mt 12:32), whereas in Jesus’ thought both came to the same thing, since it was a question of conscious hardening against the power of the coming Kingdom which worked in him. In the passages Mt 8:20 and Mt 11:19 the expression is arbitrarily used, for Jesus merely wishes to say: _I_ have nowhere to lay my head; and, _I_ eat and drink, in contrast to the ascetic practice of the Baptist. [pg 198] It is quite a different case which is presented by the two unhistorical “Son of Man” passages in St. Mark’s Gospel. Mk 2:10—The Son of Man hath authority to forgive sins upon earth. Mk 2:28—The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath. The secondary character appears in the fact that Jesus is supposed to have used the expression here as a self-designation. The historical fact is that he used it in that connection in the third person, referring either to the Son of Man as an eschatological figure, or to man in general. In either case it makes sense. 1. Man as such can by works of healing declare the forgiveness of sins upon earth. Man as man is lord of the Sabbath. 2. In view of the coming of the Son of Man forgiveness of sins is already available, as the works of healing show. In view of the coming of the Son of Man a higher factor already emerges to modify the legalistic observance of the Sabbath. The Law yields to something higher. The case of David shows it.